VIF Information Alerts - 10 Jan 2018

World Bank says India has ‘enormous potential’, predicts 7.3% growth in 2018
Published –India Express
10 Jan 2018

With an “ambitious government undertaking comprehensive reforms”, India has “enormous growth potential” compared to other emerging economies, the World Bank said, as it projected country’s growth rate to 7.3 per cent in 2018 and 7.5 for the next two years.Click here to read... [2]

Surge in Chinese transgressions, faceoffs on LAC
Published – Indian Express
10 Jan 2018

There was a marked increase in the number of Chinese transgressions into the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the year the Indian and Chinese armies were involved in a 73-day faceoff at Doklam on the Sikkim-Bhutan border. The number of faceoffs on the LAC also shot up by 48 per cent last year.

According to official data accessed by The Indian Express, there were 415 transgressions by Chinese soldiers into the Indian side of the LAC in 2017 — as against 271 transgressions in 2016. .Click here to read... [3]

Chinese General Under Investigation, Joining a Line of Fallen Commanders
Published – New York Times
10 Jan 2018

A senior Chinese general who won the national spotlight by overseeing a grand military parade and who vowed unwavering support for President Xi Jinping’s drive against corruption has come under investigation for graft, the latest in a string of People’s Liberation Army commanders to fall. Click here to read... [4]

China to fund construction of counter-terrorism base in northern Afghanistan
Published –The Hindu
10 Jan 2018

China will fund the construction of a counter-terrorism base in Badakshan province in Afghanistan to block cross-border infiltration of the ethnic Uyghur militants.

Fergana News Agency (FNA) is quoting Gen. Dawlat Waziri of the Afghan defence ministry as saying that China will provide financial support to build the base, whose precise location inside Badakshan, in northern Afghanistan, is yet to the determined. Click here to read... [5]

Chinese consul-general pushes for Mamata’s long-awaited Beijing trip
Economic Times
10 Jan 2018

In the backdrop of Beijing's increasing interaction with the public life in eastern India through various social activities, Ma Zhanwu, the Chinese consulgeneral in Kolkata, said he was looking at 2018 to be a year of "more high-level (diplomatic) exchanges".Click here to read... [6]

US Neglecting JCPOA Will Have Consequences
Financial Tribune
10 Jan 2018

Iran said on Monday it might reconsider its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog if the United States failed to respect its commitments in the nuclear deal Tehran struck with world powers in 2015.

US President Donald Trump must decide by mid-January whether to continue waiving US sanctions on Iran under the terms of the nuclear pact that eased economic pressure on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. Click here to read... [7]

‘Friend of India’ in US Congress calls it quits
Tribune India
10 Jan 2018

Royce, the veteran US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman and a friend of India, said today he would not seek re-election, becoming the eighth Republican Chairman who has chosen to retire before midterm poll. Click here to read... [8]